Luminescence
by windonmycheek
Summary: Zero nurses an unrequited one-sided love for his childhood friend. One-shot  AU


**Luminescence**

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He didn't know when it started - this infatuation of his. An infatuation that he dismissed as a passing fancy that arose due to the changes he went through as an adolescent.

He ignored the small voice that whispered at the back of his mind whenever his eyes perused the clean lines of that lithe figure. Or when he drowned momentarily in those haunting garnet pools that flickered with life and an intensity that burned deeply into his soul.

It was then that he realized that this infatuation had mutated and evolved into an emotion that threatened to overwhelm him whenever the object of his attention was concerned. An emotion he, Zero Kiryuu, did not dare to give a name to.

He didn't want to let the easy camaraderie and trust he had built with him slip through his fingers. He was afraid to lose the very reason he was alive for. A fear that swallowed him whole, whenever that treacherous thought of admittance sprung forth.

And so he hid this emotion. Boxed it up and threw it into a corner of the dusty attic that was his mind. Kept safely under lock and key was this emotion, chained and imprisoned, never to see the light of the world.

It was an emotion that was only indulged in the privacy of his studio. The peaceful, quiet elegance he had immortalized countless times; painstakingly brought to life by bold streaks of color. So endless in its proportion that Zero had wanted a larger canvas.

Years passed. Zero, who was now an underpaid artist with raw talent that still lay unfounded. Him, an astute businessman who was the incarnate of success and beauty, all rolled into a single package.

They were old friends who were very much in tune with each other - a delicate balance that Zero savored like hot chocolate on a cold Friday night. It was disrupted, by one picture during their Saturday drinking session together.

She was lovely visage of warm sunshine captured in a stolen moment of time, framed delicately by crystals that probably cost more than his salary in a year. Words failed him when they met and all he could do was stare at the picture of bliss his friend made when he gazed at sunshine.

That same wine-red gaze that used to send a shiver of happiness through him now tore him asunder.

Zero wondered vaguely if he were a masochist in disguise. If not, why had he agreed to dinner with the happy couple when he knew the agony would rip him from inside out.

Because it would make him happy, Zero thought. He was the reason the silver-haired man continued to struggle with an otherwise bleak existence. Grief stabbed at him when he saw the chaste kiss shared between sunshine and perfection as he came back from the restroom.

It had left gaping holes of despair in him. But he knew, who was he to demand otherwise?

He was an orphan who didn't have a single cent to his name.

He was a man who had nothing else to offer but that emotion he had at last acknowledged as unrequited love only a few months ago.

He could only watch as happiness overtook that angular face that ghosted the edges of his dreams.

He could only smile, a plastic mask that hid the cracks of anguish - a gnawing pain he drowned in. He bit the inside of his cheek as he willed himself to endure the last twenty minutes of the ceremony. He ignored the worried glances sent his way by similar garnet eyes that haunted his dreams and reality.

Zero laughed as he downed a shot of brandy. The alcohol burned a path down his throat, the pain unrelenting and a welcome retreat from the hollow that was his heart. Soft hands patted at his back but he paid them no heed.

Zero moved to cover the petite brunette figure on his couch with a comforter, the resemblance agonizingly striking. A determined and gentle soul who saw through him and offered comfort no matter how temporary it was. Zero cracked a small smile as he ruffled the long chocolate locks fondly.

The clock struck midnight as he finally finished illuminating the vibrancy of life in that smile under the luminescence of the moon. Each lonely chime striking a chord in his chest, reviving the tortured melancholy in him.

He brushed a drying cheek with trembling fingers before he tasted the salt of his tears. A solitary drop that rolled sluggishly down his cheek, illuminated only by the light of the moon drifting in from his window.

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A/N: This is what happens when I listen to emo music… Please pardon any grammatical mistake I've made since I tend to overlook them. Do leave a review.


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